Doubts about Mayor Pete’s electability are fading fast.
Pete Buttigieg is having a moment.
At least, that’s what CNN and The Guardian are saying. And the rest of the mediascape seems to agree.
Ebony, the African-American culture magazine, reported that Buttigieg’s message is finding favor with black voters, asking, “Is Pete Buttigieg Black Voters’ 2020 Presidential Dark Horse?”
And they weren’t the only ones to use the “Dark Horse” metaphor. The phrase was also used by The Intercept, Yahoo News, and The Washington Post, as well as a flurry of copycat local news organizations.
Buttigieg plays well with the media. After his CNN Town Hall, he reported raising $600,000 in just 24 hours, and he won wide coverage for his clever quip about the “pornstar presidency.”
NBC News, fascinated by the Trump-Buttigieg disparity, pitched Mayor Pete as the “anti-Trump.” NBC wrote, “While Trump obtained deferments to avoid Vietnam, Buttigieg signed up for military service when his generation went to war in Afghanistan. He comes from a small Midwestern city rather than the Big Apple. And perhaps most important to primary voters and some Republicans, his politics are informed by a deep grasp of history, philosophy and ethics that are at odds with Trump's rejection of expertise.”
Buttigieg is the humble, geeky patriot dichotomizing dramatically with the brazen jingoist, Donald Trump.
A simple Google News search shows that the Mayor of South Bend Indiana is making headlines as fast as reporters can write them. The biggest argument against Buttigieg used to be that he’s not electable. The grounds for that argument have evaporated.
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A recent, small-sample poll positions Buttigieg as a major player, setting him at 11% in Iowa, only falling short of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. The Hill reported the director of the Emerson poll saying, "The biggest surprise in this poll is Mayor Pete, last week we saw him inching up in our national poll, and now he’s in double digits in Iowa. America is going to be asking: Who is 'Mayor Pete'?"
Buttigieg has kept a brisk fundraising pace as well, passing the DNC’s 65,000 donor mark well before the debate deadline.
Buttigieg’s second impediment may be experience, or perceived lack thereof. However, he has done well to quell the concerns, making qualifications a key part of his opening message.
He addressed the question head-on at a meet and greet in Indiana. “Look, you could be a senior senator and have never managed more than a hundred people in your life,” he said. “I not only have more years of government experience than the president of the United States, but I have more years of executive experience than the vice president of the United States, and more wartime experience than anybody who arrived in the office since George H.W. Bush. As cheeky as it sounds coming from the youngest guy in the conversation, I think experience is one of the things that qualifies me to have a seat at the table.”
As Buttigieg becomes a promising primary player, pundits raise the question of how he would fit in the general election.
For Donald Trump, a candidate that feeds off of scandal and smut, the so-far pristine past of Buttigieg will spark nightmares. And prospects are slim that Trump could convincingly convey a tough demeanor in the face of a military veteran with a stellar Twitter persona. Additionally, Buttigieg would be the youngest President ever, and is likely to all but sweep the young vote.
Pete Buttigieg has vaulted gracefully onto the national stage, and according to polling, is outpacing the previously imagined powerhouses. At 11 months out, Buttigieg has already shed his supposed anonymity, and if current trends continue, he won’t be getting a break from the public eye any time soon.
Democratic Voters would be right to have high hopes for the not-so-dark horse of 2020.
Mayor Pete came to play.
-Ben Chapman
Ben Chapman is a reporter and commentator in Illinois. He is a student in Food Science and Human Nutrition and ran for his local County Board in 2018. Follow him on Twitter.
